The purpose of this study was to see how the teacher works with children´s language and what working methods they use to develop language, as well as knowledge, among the children in a multilingual school.The main questions for the essay:? What reasons the interviewed teachers about language development?? What approach do the interviewed teachers describe that they use in their multi-lingual children?s group?In order to collect empirical data to my study I chose to use a qualitative method, which consisted of interviews with four teachers in a multilingual class. The study is based on a socio-cultural perspective where social interaction, blocking, communication and language use is the main tool for children's learning and development.The results of my study revealed that teachers realize that when they involve teamwork in class it enhances the activity among the children. In particular when the bilingual children use the language actively in different contexts where they communicate and discuss with each other in the teaching subject. When the children use language in different contexts it also enables them to develop linguistically and in terms of knowledge.

The outdoor environment at Children's hospital, the University Hospital, Uppsala, is used by sick children at the Children's hospital, their families and the hospital staff. The staff at the Children's hospital wanted to render the site more attractive and available. This graduation thesis is a proposal about how the outdoor environment at the Children's hospital can be improved. The aim is to design an environment for the sick children, their families and the hospital staff that will serve as a place for relaxation and privacy, as well as for play and movement. In order to find support for the redesign of this site I read literature about theories concerning healing environments, healing gardens, children's play and designs for children.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine and analyze what discourses about children that can be found in three Swedish culture publications, and also to identify the different social roles that are attributed to children in these publications. The theoretical and methodological background is discourse theory, as described by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Additional theory used is social constructionism and Norman Fairclough?s critical discourse theory. Three questions are asked: What discourse/s can be found in these publications? What do these discourses tell us about the view on children within the library domain? What social roles are attributed to the children in the texts and what consequences do these have for the power configuration between children and adults? Furthermore there is a discussion concerning what effects these discourses might have on the direct and indirect reception of children in the library.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to obtain greater understanding of how children relate to the film medium and their experiences. This is obtained by listening to the children and observing their verbal and nonverbal communication in two focus group interviews. Children?s access to and selection of film are due to adult?s restrictions.

This study discloses Swedish human service organizations and their methods of integrating unaccompanied children into the Swedish society. The purpose of the study is to investigate how social workers at HVB-homes for unaccompanied children depict their experience in and knowledge of how the unaccompanied children are integrated into Swedish society. The method of investigating the questions raised by the purpose of this thesis has been qualitative analysis of answers derived from interviewing personnel at HVB-homes for unaccompanied children. In doing so we have made use of a semi-structured method of interviewing the above-mentioned personnel. The data derived from these interviews has thereafter been analysed and filtered through the concept of integration and the theoretical formations human service organizations and street-level bureaucrats.

AbstractThe purpose of the study was to examine if manual signs used as support to spoken and written language can be a god mnemonic for learning of word-pictures. I performed my study as an experiment in which I made a Memory game with word-pictures. I played the game with the children twice. The first time, we played without manual signs and the second time I used sign as a support. I observed the children and noted the words they learned to read with and without the support of manual signs.

Different abilities are of importance to pragmatics, there among hearing. Hearing impairment can affect language development and also pragmatic ability. The aim of the present paper was to study the pragmatic ability in terms of request for clarification in children with Hearing Impairment (HI) in conversation with children with no known hearing impairment, henceforth normally hearing (NH). The present study also describes requests for clarification sequentially in detail, and also highlights points where there may be observable differences between children with and without hearing impairment. Eight conversational pairs consisting of one child with HI and one NH child were studied.

This study intends to examine why the Swedish children?s programme Bolibompa is produced the way it is during a larger catastrophe. Our intention was to find out how the editorial staff, in the children?s department in the public service television of Sweden (SVT),was handling the Estonia disaster, the September 11 attacks and the Asian Tsunami. To accomplish that, we first had to find out how the children?s programme looked during these catastrophes and also understand how the editorial staff was working with children?s programme during ordinary days.To achieve our purpose we have been interviewing five persons from SVT, who was involved in producing the children?s programme during these three catastrophes.

The research in this thesis attempts to understand what happens when children (3-6 years of age) interact with each other in the context of free play in two pre-school settings when adults are not involved. The aim of the study was to get a closer look at how children create relationships and how they protect and defend their interactional spaces. Data was gathered through ethnographically inspired methodology, using video observation to capture the everyday interactions of the children. Results were analyzed using a phenomenological approach to peer cultures. Previous research suggests that it is very important for children to maintain their interactions with peers and gaining access to play.

Introduction: The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test is a widely used test for measuring aspects of social cognition. The aim of the present study was to provide results from a group of typically developing Swedish children (age 9-12) and to compare these results with children and adults in other Swedish and English studies, as well as results from a group of children with Asperger syndrome. Method: A Swedish version of the child version of the test was completed by 83 controls and by six children with Asperger syndrome. Results were compared between the two groups and with data from other studies. Results: The children in the current study did not differ on scores compared to children in the same age group in other studies.

The aim of the study is to show how children and adults are described in three picture books, examining how children and adults are portrayed in text-and-picture narrative and how this has changed over time. We have analysed how the characters in the books are presented and how the representation of children and adults has changed in our own times.The material for the study consists of three picture books from different periods, with the focus on how children and adults are described as the common point of departure. The analysed picture books are: Tomtebobarnen (Beskow 1919), Aja baja, Alfons Åberg! (Bergström 1972) and Snäll (Dahle 2008).We have arrived at the conclusion that a text-and-picture narrative is in very large measure a reflection of the outlook on children, childhood and child rearing at the time when the book was published. The result shows that the greatest change that has happened is that parents? and adults? dominance in the books has declined over the years, and that children have been given a more prominent role.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka förskollärares erfarenheter av och tankar om implementeringen av barns inflytande i förskolan. För att på bästa sätt kunna besvara studiens syfte har semistrukturerade intervjuer använts som metod. Fem förskollärare intervjuades enskilt av mig och en intervjuguide användes under intervjun. Resultatet visar att barns inflytande är något som förskollärarna arbetar med i förskoleverksamheten men att barns inflytande tar sig uttryck i förskolan på olika sätt. Det finns både likheter och olikheter i hur de ser på barns inflytande.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to investigate children?s librarian?s perspectives on children?s literature and reading of fiction books. This is a comparative study of Swedish and Lithuanian librarians. The main questions to be answered are how children?s librararians at public libraries motivate their selection and purchase of fiction for children and what kind of considerations there are behind the purchases.

Purpose: This study examines pedagogues? thoughts about children?s understanding of death, and their reactions to the death of a relative. The aim is also to examine pedagogues? thoughts about their part in supporting bereaved children, and how they wish to do so. Method: Seven pedagogues, who work with six to nine year old children, were interviewed.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the impact of learning on open-field activity among pre-school children varying from 3 to 5 years old. Altogether 25 children, 13 girls and 12 boys, entered the test from three different preschools in Dalarna. Six of these children represented the control group. The children were asked to learn 2 tasks, 1 visual memory task and 1 spatial constructing-kit task. Before, between and after the tasks, the children were allowed to move freely in the open field.